Let me set the scene. You’re a Juggalo who gets freaked out when one of your friends cuts the brake line of some schmo while you’re on your nightly vandalism spree. You do the right thing and let the cops know that your accomplice may be looking to hurt someone. Said accomplices then show up and with metal baseball bats asking you to come into the woods with them. Would you go?
Now what if they offered you two pounds of marijuana? Still no, right. But then again you’re not some “recreational weed smoker” are you?
Angered that a one-time friend had snitched to police, four Hazleton area men lured him to a remote part of Schuylkill County where they beat him to death with metal baseball bats, hitting him as many as 80 times, authorities say.
Police said the victim, Anthony V. Locascio, 21, who recently moved to Hazleton, and the suspects all knew each other and shared a devotion to a hardcore hip-hop group known for espousing violence.
After the beating, the men removed Locascio’s clothes and jewelry as part of their retaliation against him for ratting on a fellow follower of the hip-hop group, state police said.
[…]
During a news conference at the state police barracks in Frackville, Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman and state police investigators declined several times to identify the name of the hip-hop group. But a source close to the investigation later confirmed the group is the Insane Clown Posse, a Detroit band that Gombert, Foose and Locascio referred to on their MySpace pages.
This isn’t the only Juggalo related crime in the area recently:
In Monroe County earlier this year, two teens who described themselves as juggalos stabbed 21-year-old Michael Goucher to death, prompting Monroe detectives there to identify the juggalos as a local gang, according to published reports.
Now how’s this for for a victimless crime by some misunderstood mellow stoners:
An arrest affidavit says the suspects told state police they killed Locascio, whom they referred to as a snitch, because he recently went to Hazleton police and told them that he and an accomplice cut the brake lines to a vehicle owned by Robin Hannah. They also poured sugar in the gas tank, said police, who identified Hannah as the estranged husband of a friend of Locascio.
The incident led to a feud between Locascio and his friends.
According to the affidavit:
The suspects admitted they lured Locascio to the wooded area along Old Mill Road in East Union with the intention of killing him.
They told Locascio they were driving to the location to buy 2 pounds of marijuana. Once they got there, Locascio got out of the vehicle to smoke marijuana, and the four suspects got out and started hitting him with bats.
When Locascio fell to the ground, the suspects inflicted another 60 to 80 blows to his head and upper body. An autopsy revealed that he suffered numerous blunt-force injuries to the head, causing a fatal skull fracture.
District Attorney Goodman and state police would not talk about the hip-hop connection at their news conference.
”There may be some relation to a group,” Goodman said. ”At this point, we are not going to comment on that and the way the body was left behind.”
The news release does say: ”Retaliation against the victim for ‘ratting’ on a fellow follower resulted in the accused removing the victim’s clothes and jewelry after the brutal beating.”
Juggalos typically wear dark clothing, piercings and merchandise of the band Insane Clown Posse, or ICP. The band’s members are known for their painted faces and aggressive, often violent, lyrics. While some police have started identifying juggalos as a gang, followers consider themselves a family and the music a religion.
I hope that was some good weed. And what’s with the cutting brake lines of people? I though pot smokers weren’t criminals? Just one more isolated incident that doesn’t reflect on the drug culture I’m sure.
h/t Trench